| Fei Mu | |||||||||
| Birth Date: | October 10, 1906 | ||||||||
| Birth Place: | Shanghai, China | ||||||||
| Death Place: | British Hong Kong | ||||||||
| Occupation: | Director, screenwriter, film producer | ||||||||
| Years Active: | 1933-1951 | ||||||||
| Children: | Barbara Fei | ||||||||
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Fei Mu (October 10, 1906 – January 31, 1951), also romanised as Fey Mou, was a Chinese film director of the pre-Communist era. His Spring in a Small Town (1948) was declared the greatest Chinese film ever made by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society.[1]
Fei Mu's ancestral hometown is Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. He was born in Shanghai, China in 1906. Before becoming a director, he worked as an assistant of the film pioneer Hou Yao.[2]
Known for his artistic style and costume dramas, Fei made his first film, Night in the City (1933), produced by the Lianhua Film Company), at the age of 27, and he was met with both critical and popular acclaim; the film is now lost. Continuing to make films with Lianhua, Fei directed films throughout the 1930s and became a major talent in the industry, with films like Blood on Wolf Mountain (1936) which is often seen as an allegory on the war with Japan,[3] and Song of China (1935), a glorification of traditional values that was part of the New Life Movement. Later, Song of China became one of the few films that had a limited release in the United States.[4]
Fei's legacy as one of China's greatest directors was sealed with Spring in a Small Town (1948) about a love triangle in post-war China (it was later remade by Tian Zhuangzhuang in 2002 as Springtime in a Small Town).[5] Director Wong Kar-wai called him the only film poet he knew in China. In 2005, Spring in a Small Town was declared the greatest Chinese film ever made by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society.[6] Fei remained active in this so-called "Second Golden Age" and also directed China's first color film A Wedding in the Dream (1948), which incorporated Beijing Opera and starred Mei Lanfang.[7] Following the Communist revolution in 1949, Fei Mu, along with many other artists and intellectuals fled to Hong Kong. There he founded Longma Film Company (Dragon-Horse Films) with Zhu Shilin and Fei Luyi and produced (under the Longma name) Zhu Shilin's The Flower Girl (1951).
Following his death from a heart attack in Hong Kong in 1951 while working at his desk, Fei Mu and his work temporarily fell into obscurity, as much of his filmography was forgotten or ignored on the mainland and rejected by leftists as indicative of rightist ideologies. It was not until the 1980s, when the China Film Archive re-opened after being closed down during the Cultural Revolution, that Fei Mu's work found a new audience. Most significant was a new print made by the China Film Archive from the original negative of Spring in a Small Town.[8]
| Year | English title | Chinese title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1933 | Night in the City | 城市之夜 | Also known as City Nights; silent |
| 1934 | A Sea of Fragrant Snow | 香雪海 | Also known as A Nun's Love; silent |
| 1934 | Life | 人生 | Silent |
| 1935 | Song of China | 天倫 | Also known as Filial Piety; co-directed with Luo Mingyou |
| 1936 | Blood on Wolf Mountain | 狼山喋血記 | Also known as Bloodbath in Langshan and Bloodbath on Wolf Mountain |
| 1937 | Martyrs of the Northern Front | 北戰場精忠錄 | Chinese opera film |
| 1937 | Gold-Plated City | 鍍金的城 | Also known as the Gilded City; Chinese opera film |
| 1937 | Murder in the Oratory | 斬經堂 | Chinese opera film |
| 1937 | Nightmares in Spring Chamber | 夢斷春閨 | Episode in Lianhua Symphony |
| 1940 | Confucius | 孔夫子 | Thought lost, rediscovered in 2001 |
| 1941 | Children of the World | 世界兒女 | Co-directed with Jacob Fleck and Luise Fleck |
| 1941 | The Beauty | 國色天香 | |
| 1941 | Songs of Ancient China | 古中國之歌 | Chinese opera film |
| 1948 | The Little Cowheard | 小放牛 | Chinese opera film |
| 1948 | A Wedding in the Dream | 生死恨 | First Chinese color film; also known as Happiness in neither Life nor Death; Chinese opera film |
| 1948 | Spring in a Small Town | 小城之春 | |
| Year | English title | Chinese title | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1934 | Life | 人生 | |
| 1936 | Blood on Wolf Mountain | 狼山喋血記 | |
| 1936 | On Stage and Backstage | 前台与後台 | |
| 1937 | Martyrs of the Northern Front | 北戰場精忠錄 | |
| 1937 | Nightmares in Spring Chamber | 夢斷春閨 | |
| 1940 | Confucius | 孔夫子 | |
| 1941 | Children of the World | 世界兒女 | |
| 1941 | Songs of Ancient China | 古中國之歌 |